i am not legally obligated to watch every team or give a shit about how they play
I have similar rules for giantx, mibr, and team liquid(though this one i tend to break purely for the entertainment factor)
not sure if you were referring to a specific map at shanghai(guessing 100t-th?), but most of the teams at shanghai id already watched outside of DRG and understand the level they are capable of/average at, while that was my first experience with GE(and let's not pretend they do deserve my viewing lol most people have better things to do than watch polvi whiff awp shots) so i had no baseline
but i watch most games and i definitely watched the rrq
as for drx i honestly hate how the roles have shaken out for drx and it looks to me like they don't like them either lol
and yes, the concept of teams playing well below their perceived ceiling and still running solid teams close being a good thing is absolutely true! but this is a team with a significant roster change and role changes to how they were set up at stage 1(that I don't think had a good reason to change outside of stax purely just not liking igling), so there is only so much truth to that concept
i did not watch map 3 against PRX but imo they played tragically bad against them on split, a map i honestly think they could have beaten PRX on in their stage 1 form
TOP 10 MOST COOKED VCT TEAMS
I for one don’t think there are role issues, they are just trying new thing.
Proof: before the match, termi literally said they were trying new things.
BuZz can play duelist
MaKo controller
BeYn duelist smokes and initiator
Flashback Flex/senti
Foxy9 duelist /sentinel
There are no role issues per se.
Map 3 against PRX wasn’t really as bad as the score suggest bad. If you go back, PRX running into the stacks a lot, we just weren’t very coherent when fighting, which is mostly an igl issues and everyone agrees on that as well as the fact that with time it will improve. I even said right after the match(most ppl who saw agreed) that the map would looks a lot different if DRX started on attack, it wouldn’t have been as dominant but they could definitely have taken a solid 8-4 lead into half. Because the icebox attack is pretty drilled and set, which gives a lot of room for error from the igl. Maybe if they started out attack, the snowball effect wouldn’t take over where PRX were just piling on rounds
my issue role-wise is the only player who has an initiator i actually find to be good is beyn on scan specifically
i didn't like what they tried with mako, foxy9 obviously already tried and failed, and flashback's flash is kind of mid to me
i think they had a window to pick up yoman, ditch flashback or fuckc9(probably foxy9 which is a shame because he's a demon), and really lean into the rebuilding and experimentation period that this year has kind of weirdly turned out to be for drx
that window will open again in the off-season, but i wish they did it after dropping stax instead
i think watching them what im seeing is not a team that had a bad game, or bad couple of games, but a team that regressed from their split 1 form, and I do not back them to turn that into a net improvement by before champs
with respect to them experimenting now, unfortunately they're putting themselves at a pretty serious risk by doing just that - they finish the season against talon and dfm which I think will put them 7-3 to end the season, below talon who would be 8-2 in the scenario where they beat drx
leaves them in a single elim game against one of rrq, ts, or geng, and im not sure which of those i back them to win, if any
they won’t ditch flashback, he’s might even be their best player from what i’ve seen so far, especially with MaKo igling now. They won’t pick up yoman so there is no point to speculate about that. DRX don’t take in non-DRX prospects players.
Also why are people so quick to make assumptions. Have ppl not learned that that valorant competitive is very unpredictable.
I can name so many examples that have happened this year alone.
Gen G becoming best team itw
Sen winning masters
Sen not qualifying for shanghai
During americas regular season, everyone came to a consensus that Lev was the best americas team, now nobody thinks that
G2 getting top 3 at shanghai
Team Heretics going from one of the worst to one of the best
PRX disappointing in shanghai
Fnatic not keeping up form from 2023
NAVI still mid with ardiis back
EDG no longer china’s best
T1 pretty much knocked out despite making shanghai
RRQ beat Gen G
T1 beat Gen G
and many more
Also, i hate to say this, but im sure you watched the t1 and team secret game. Stax was the odd man out, Even a slightly better performance from him would mean a win for t1. But not a single soul will mention it because they have some type of hatebone for DRX. People will play that off as just a bad and unlucky game for stax yet if DRX play bad, they will point out every single one of their problems even though it was clear from the very start that the team is experimenting.
No shit the team regressed, no team drops a player and instantly gets better unless that player you dropped was a sub. It takes time, but everyone is so quick to hate on them for actually trying to experiment instead of being complacent. They can’t ever win.
Then it’s gonna be the same argument as b4, “if DRX never dropped rb and zest, they would’ve been better” as if the old roster didn’t lose 0-2 to PRX with a streamer on their team.
going through this in order
- only reason i bring up flashback as a potential out for yoman is simply the role overlap with most of his other teammates, i would personally prefer if they dropped fuckc9 for yoman as he would genuinely solve every issue i believe drx currently has. unfortunately you are right that they wouldn't sign him, but it's easily the best solution to all their problems and will unlock their highest ceiling yet imo
- not sure what the relevance is with this unpredictability point you brought up unless you're trying to suggest DRX still could have the room to find their footing and make champs as a threat to win, to which i would say most of the big improvement-related examples you named are teams that made big roster changes being the product of those surprises(TH, GenG, PRX, SEN), which is not applicable to DRX's situation since they've already shown a glimpse of their performance level post-changes, and i would also say their surprise was going 5-0 first split after making the moves they did
- ill get into t1 in a second but as for the idea that drx are judged more harshly or too harshly for their losses, i dont agree with the first bit - everyone is judged harshly by every bad game they play, i honestly judged GenG quite harshly for their split1 performance and thought they wouldn't make shanghai(they shouldn't have, drx should have put them away) and that they'd play badly at shanghai(lol), but i think in general everyone is a harsh critic(and usually for the wrong reasons - for instance, everyone rides c0ms ass about his performances on lev when kingg and goked have been the clear cause of their problems, and c0m's performances are merely a product of that)
- my concern with DRX taking this time to experiment is i don't believe they have the time, especially given how rushed the pacific schedule is, if they continue to play at this level they are showing now they will likely lose to any of the three teams they play in the single elim game, and they need to beat talon to avoid the single elim game, which they are not yet playing at a level to do. talon is really good for reasons i still can't wrap my head around, but drx just straight up have to beat them or it'll be a very big shitshow for them come playoff time. i would be more lenient with them if this was split 1, but they are running out of time very very fast and given rrq and talon's performances, drx aren't even the favourites to qualify off of champs points. yes, their improvement will take time, but they have run out of that
- whether DRX made a good decision to drop Rb and Zest is kind of neither here nor there, we'll never know if they actually hit their ceiling because DRX completely trolled how they set up their roster for a full year and then didn't give them time the year after, but assuming they did in fact hit a ceiling, this was absolutely the right way to go because that ceiling wasn't a title-winning one
- for T1, i'd say that yeah stax played less than ideal against TS lol but in general i think saya is actually the odd man out on that team, unfortunately they are regularly running weaker, off-meta comps that they find themselves getting punished very hard for in their game plans, and saya's inflexibility combined with iZu's lack of proficiency on an unfortunately large range of agents that he is ultimately forced to play anyway puts T1 on some pretty shitty comps that is losing them games(split against TS)
it literally can't happen, so there's not much point in even bringing it up, but demon1 would honestly be a good fit for T1 agent pool-wise, given that xcc kind of looks uncomfortable IGLing on the smokes role
if T1 keep their core of rossy, xccurate, and stax, and potentially keep izu as well, they could look really nice next year
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